Posts Tagged ‘Odin’

There is a strong link between Sami (northern Sweden) belief in the red and white of the Fly Agaric (amanita muscaria), Santa’s robes and flying reindeer:
In Sami shamanism, herdsmen noticed that the deer would eat the mushrooms and become intoxicated. They used the deer’s body to process out the toxins and drank the urine heavily laced with the psychedelic muscimol, resulting in a comatose state in which they made shamanic journeys- literally flying with the reindeer. The shaman would return to his body by descending through the smoke hole, tying us in to Santa entering houses via the chimney.

Odin himself was lord of the Wild Hunt – rampaging through the skies on his eight legged steed Sleipnir… But! In the winter, he left the high seat of Asgard in the care of Yew deities Uller and Ullin (whose sacred items were the snowshoe and yew bow) to wander the nine worlds: certainly a poetic kenning for Shamanic journeying..

Today’s rune is A – Ansuz – “Mouth, breath, speech, God (esp Odin)”, I was ready for a day of communication.

Next weekend I’m making a long trek up to an off-grid community on Scoraig for a week-long course on kiln building, smelting and casting in bronze, just like the Ancients; but with the advantage of brand new materials and tech.

Today was all about calling to book a rental car, phoning around to find a bed for the night beforehand – there just happened to be a music festival on the same weekend and every B&B was booked up… I was eventually given the number of an old lady with a room to spare – and giving the ferryman a ring to check that there was space on the 6pm boat across the sea loch.

Further to my previous post, I performed a ritual with the intent of gaining a power word to snap myself out of impending rage and into my magical persona. The ritual itself is outlined in the first paragraph of this article, which I preceded (and followed) with the banishing ritual given as an example here. Pretty basic stuff, really.